The final arrangement for the year - all the pedals that impressed the most!
So we featured 120 pedals across the 5 Genre categories this year - as you’ve witnessed over the last 5 days, and those have been whittled and distilled down to these 27 Magnificent and Exceedingly Flavoursome candidates.
Picking out the very best of those is obviously a slightly subjective exercise while based on a series of exacting criteria - including innovation, versatility, practicality, variability, playability, quality of manufacture, quality of output and sheer enjoyment.
Here ...
And so to the final category - where competition is extremely fierce this year. No doubt some of your favourites will have missed the cut here - but hopefully this selection is fully representative of the best of the year. Obvious I lean more towards immersive stereo effects - mono doesn’t really do it for me so much - while there is a smattering of mono pedals in here too. Price, format, versatility and practicality - everything counts!
Of the 23 featured in the selection - I own around ...
It’s great to see that shortly after Boss / Roland revived their 1983 SDE-3000 Rack Delay Unit, TC Electronic is now doing the same for its 1985 2990 Dynamic Digital Delay + Effects Control Processor. Both of these are superb conversions with most of the original features and functions intact. The only thing TC were unable to fit in really was the Keypad from the 1985 unit - but most everything else is present and correct.
The Boss SDE-3000 can obviously deliver 4 delays simultaneously - ...
Even though I wasn’t particularly enamoured with the look of the first 3 releases - they obviously went down a storm - where I feel the $150 price tag was a big part of their success. While people obviously and very evidently seem to really like them. Which has encouraged TC Electronic to rush-release 3 more.
This time around tackling 3 Heavy Metal Classic amp inspirations - the Peavey 5150, Marshall JCM800, and MESA/Boogie Dual Rectifier - all 3 which featured in my Iconic Amps Roundup ...
I’m expecting this post to attract a lot of ’whataboutisms’ as many of my rundowns seem to do. While every single choice / selection here is well considered, pondered upon on and properly weighted up against pertinent criteria and then further rationalised, whittled and distilled down into a top 9 or 16 or 25 - as I always favour symmetrical grids.
If I find 18 or 19 suitable candidates - then only 16 can be featured on the grid etc. - you need to draw the line somewhere. And you can also ...
An intriguing yet somewhat seemingly hasty launch of a new line of preamp pedals - which TC Electronic is calling the ’Ampworx Vintage Series’ - highlighting the recent advances in DSP modelling - while there seem to be a few oddities about the overall decision making process here.
Nothing wrong with the actual target source amps - 1960 Vox AC30, 1963 Marshall JTM45, and 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb - and those 3 TCE preamps actually sound relatively decent enough - while someone else needs to...
I’ve championed various causes over the years - including ongoingly encouraging brands to evolve their own style of knobs - to help distinguish and differentiate themselves from the myriad alternatives. As a component - knobs are highly visual and can really lend a certain look or aspect of quality to a pedal. Generally Milled Aluminium or Sculpted Ceramic Knobs are top of that pack - and yet 99% of brands use a handful of very ubiquitous and commonplace designs.
Far less visible - as much ...
I loved the concept of the original Infinite Sample Sustainer - basically a significantly evolved version of that classic freeze / pad effect (a la EHX Freeze etc.) - which is essentially a short loop on continuous repeat. The Infinite Sample Sustainer has a smarter and fuller sounding algorithm which plays back the sample simultaneously forwards and reverse - to produce a wider and more enriched soundstage.
The 3 Main Controls are the same - Decay (Layer Sustain), Level (Output Level), ...
This episode is a little more esoteric and preferential than most - and involves identifying the most notable and easily recognisable ’Pedal Shapes and Formats’ essentially. Of course there is some subjective preference here - while I will try to explain objectively how I came to this exact 25 pedal selection - some of these are very obvious - others are slightly more idiosyncratic choices - while there are obviously some brands that are particularly good at coming up with memorable enclosure ...